Gloria Steinem once said, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.” Hence, we are stuck in our reality which we consider “normal”. Say, used to be normal due to both the capabilities of technology as well as its restrictions. Look at TV. At least my generation still clings to the notion that TV is something which is a program with the property of predictability for a certain piece of content at a predetermined time where a major TV station will conduct its broadcast. Ok, so let’s “unlearn” this common wisdom just for a sec and break up the process chain in all its various elements and put them together in an alternative, yet fully feasible, scenario of nowadays.
Content Production: Can be a Hollywood studio, a professional reporter doing some awesome work on a tribe in the Amazonas, but also average Joe with his video cam taping his cat chasing after a bird and then falling into a swimming pool.
Content storage and Distribution: Can be of course again the awestruck TV station which does a “one time fits all” simulcast transmission, but can also be a high-scale video-on-demand site like Google Video or YouTube which allows people to upload and store videos for free and watch them from that place directly in their browsers. Or even implement the video-stream based on the technology of these platforms on your own blog – like I did yesterday.
Program Director: Can be the highly paid and admittedly smart guy like Fred Kogel in Germany or viewers just looking through the various videos available running into the risk of information overflow.
Program Guide: Can be the classic print magazine which provides you structure, orientation and recommendations in terms of what to view or an online-site like Videosift which functions as an aggregator between those two mentioned video-platforms above. The major difference, however, to a print-guide as a static piece of paper is the dynamics of a living system of real people adding some sort of relevance. How does it work exactly? If you know Digg, you will be aware of the principle: Members can post, to be more precise “refer to” messages (or videos) and other members will vote on the importance of that item based on their likes. The stronger an item gets voted, the higher it will show in its positioning on the e.g. homepage and thus become a community driven indicator for relevance for subsequent users with major implications on their choices.
Getting back to my initial point: If we “unlearnt” what we learnt, could this be a way of TV-consumption we might face in the future? At least I strongly believe that elements of social relevance will be commonplace. Consider that time-bound simulcast is by now already a no-brainer and video-on-demand will be nothing exciting in very few years. Well, of course, big brands from Hollywood will still play a role in the decision which media to consume. And I will be happy if there is a “station” which bundles content from which I know for what category and quality it stands for.
But again, along the axis of “increasing degree of non-commercial content”, e.g. great stuff from independent producers or user generated content, social relevance will be THE major layer how to distinguish my personal pearls from the rest. In addition – and I might have spend some more profound research on this – there might be several dimensions along which to “vote”. Dimensions, which are easy and intuitive for both the guy rating as well as the recipient but might provide some refined choices in an ever increasing sea of media options.
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